Cmnf Fantasy 2021 -

The reason, the priests of the Order of the Fold taught, was sacred. Women were vessels of raw, unshaped magic— anima fluens , the flowing soul. Men were vessels of structure— anima ligans , the binding soul. A woman’s bare skin allowed the world’s chaotic magic to pass through her without resistance, to be harvested by the clothed male mages, priests, and lords who stood nearby. A man’s clothing acted as a runic cage, concentrating his binding will. Thus, a clothed man and a naked woman formed a circuit: her openness, his containment. Together, they made civilization possible.

Then the Wood screamed —not in rage, but in relief. The trees bent toward her like worshippers. The silver sap turned to light. And from the deep dark, something stepped out: not a monster, but a woman. Tall, bark-skinned, with eyes like embers. A dryad. The first one seen in a thousand years.

Men, by contrast, were wrapped head to toe in elaborate costumes: wool, velvet, chainmail, or stiff linen, depending on their station. To show a man’s bare ankle was a crime of indecent exposure. To see a woman’s collarbone was merely Tuesday. cmnf fantasy

She thought. “Warm. Whole. Like I could run through a wall.”

“Good. Honest. Now, what do you feel when you are alone in your room, naked, with no one watching?” The reason, the priests of the Order of

She did. For the first time in her life, she did not feel like a vessel. She felt like a person.

They did not arrest her. They were too confused. She walked through the gate, across the gravel no-man’s-land, to the edge of the Howling Wood. The trees were black, their bark weeping silver sap. The air smelled of rust and honey. A woman’s bare skin allowed the world’s chaotic

Without the Tithe, crops would wither. Without the Tithe, the boundary walls against the Howling Wood would collapse. Without the Tithe, a woman’s own untamed magic would burn her from the inside out by her thirtieth year.